Dusan Popov may have been the inspiration for the famous fictional spy James Bond. In this photo, actor Daniel Craig portrays James Bond in the movie Quantum of Solace.
One part of a double agent’s job is to find out secrets. That agent needs to give false information to the enemy. Giving up secrets makes it look like he or she is truly working for the enemy agency. What the double agent is really doing is throwing them off track.
The information has to be believable. It cannot look like it may be a lie. Double agents cannot afford to blow their cover. Dusan Popov was a double agent who was very good at this. He was born in Yugoslavia but spoke fluent German. Popov had several high-level German friends, too. Eventually, he agreed to be a German spy during World War II.
It looked like Popov was a loyal German spy. But there was something the Germans did not know. Popov hated the Nazis. He only agreed to be a spy so he could become a double agent and work against the Germans!
Dusan Popov may have been the inspiration for the famous fictional spy James Bond. In this photo, actor Daniel Craig portrays James Bond in the movie Quantum of Solace.
Popov was friends with Ian Fleming, the creator of the fictional spy James Bond 007. It is believed that Popov was the inspiration for the 007 character.
Immediately after signing on as a Nazi spy, Popov contacted the MI5. This was the British secret intelligence agency. He offered to become a double agent for them. He was assigned a code name by the MI5. Popov would become famously known as Tricycle.
Tricycle was famously elegant. He was handsome and charming. This allowed him to move with ease through German circles. He gave the Germans what were believed to be British secrets. In reality, the secrets were carefully created by the British themselves. They were believable enough to make Tricycle look like an effective spy to the Germans.
In true spy fashion, Tricycle often used elaborate spy techniques to pass along the messages. He used invisible ink on postcards. He also used microdots—extremely small film images. It was all in an effort to keep the Germans believing that Tricycle was on their side. It worked like a charm!
Several documents were found in Tricycle’s file, including his forumla for invisible ink.
In 1944, Tricycle was part of his most important mission yet. It was called Operation Fortitude. It also led to a shift of power in World War II. Tricycle sent more false information to the Germans. Several other double agents did the same thing. They all sent the same message. Their goal was to keep German forces away from Normandy, France.
Tricycle took on his most important mission in 1944, Operation Fortitude. He was supposed to keep German soldiers away from Normandy so that the Allies could invade France. In this photo, American soldiers wade toward shore in Normandy.
The false information was extremely believable. The Nazi military had no reason to suspect Tricycle or the other agents. Since they were all relaying the same information, it seemed even more accurate. The beaches at Normandy were left almost completely unguarded by Nazi troops.
British, American, and other Allied forces were able to invade Normandy with relative ease except for a few bloody battles. They took the Nazi troops by surprise. It helped the Allies push the Nazis out of France. The invasion would have been very difficult to do without the help of double agents like Tricycle.
Allied soldiers storm the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day invasion. Double agents like Tricycle helped make the invasion more successful.
Popov never took money from the British MI5. He claimed that helping defeat the Nazis was payment enough. Plus, he was paid a great deal by the Germans themselves.
The battleship Arizona is sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.